Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers

An original interpretation of the final years of Van Gogh’s career, exploring the people and places in his late paintings

The years prior to Van Gogh’s death in 1890 were pivotal to the painter’s brief artistic career. He was working in the South of France and intent on creating new work which would advance his career. Van Gogh set about developing compositions that were informed by the natural world surrounding him, by the poets and lovers he encountered in literature, and by the individual models he was depicting. The process of his imaginative transformations has never been explored, and this will provide the opportunity to present significant new insights into the much-loved painter’s life.

The catalogue features an incredible range of ambitious canvases and important works on paper. It presents new research on themes including the artist’s innovative approach to exhibiting his work and the varied literary sources that inspired his characters and compositions. These topics are rarely written about in relation to this well-known artist and are bound to expand both scholarly and public interpretations of Van Gogh’s remarkable oeuvre.

Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

The National Gallery, London
(14 September 2024-19 January 2025)

Cornelia Homburg is an independent curator and art historian, and guest curator of Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers